THE WOODEN CLASSIC

Nothing Hokie about Curry

The son of the ex-NBA standout could have gone to father's school, but he's doing fine at Davidson.

DAVIDSON, N.C. -- The scent in the air, fresh and clean, is what you notice first.

Stephen Curry, a slender basketball player who scored 32 points and made seven of 14 three-pointers in Davidson's loss to Charlotte the night before, stepped off a campus walkway Thursday and into a small building.

"Over here, you bring your button-up shirts, and they iron and press them and hang them up for you," he said. "Over here, you just bring your bagful of clothes -- they give you a number when you first get to campus -- and they wash and fold them. It's very helpful during the week when you have a lot of work. You take a 10-minute break, and drop off your laundry."

This is no perk for privileged athletes. It is the free Davidson College laundry service, in operation since 1919 for all students.

For The Record Los Angeles Times Tuesday, December 11, 2007 Home Edition Main News Part A Page 2 National Desk 1 inches; 37 words Type of Material: Correction College basketball: In Saturday's Sports section, an article on Davidson College's Stephen Curry said Davidson and Charlotte are conference rivals. They are not. Davidson is in the Southern Conference, and Charlotte is in the Atlantic 10 Conference.

Carol Belk, who has worked in the laundry for 17 years, spotted Curry and hurried over.

"Hey, you awesome thing," she said, "Bless your heart, you were great. You have a safe trip to L.A."

"I appreciate it," Curry said, and headed back out the door to practice, a Davidson knit cap on his head to ward off the chill of a fall day.

Deep in the heart of Atlantic Coast Conference country, the son of former NBA player Dell Curry who was slighted by 12 ACC schools -- including Virginia Tech, his father's alma mater -- has found a home at tiny 1,700-student Davidson, a Presbyterian college founded in 1837.

Curry scored more points last season than any freshman in the country but Kevin Durant, set an NCAA record for freshmen by making 122 three-pointers, and finished his season with 30 points in an NCAA tournament loss to Maryland.

This season, with Davidson's record at 3-4 as the Wildcats try to steel themselves for March with games against some of the nation's top programs, the 6-foot-3 guard scored 24 in a four-point loss to top-ranked North Carolina, and 20 in a six-point loss to Duke.

Today, Curry -- the nation's second-leading scorer at 26 points a game -- brings Davidson to Anaheim to take on seventh-ranked UCLA in the Wooden Classic at the Honda Center.

"We missed out," said Duke Coach Mike Krzyzewski, who remembers Curry as a skinny youngster who used to attend Blue Devils basketball camp. "I'd like to have him."

At a school such as North Carolina, Curry would be a demigod, and students might whisper excitedly on the rare moments they encountered him on the sprawling campus.

At Davidson, Curry knows the names of those who greet him as he passes the stately old brick buildings on a campus that has produced 23 Rhodes scholars, and he eats his meals with the other students.

"Just how small it is here, it has its benefits. I know probably 85% of the student population by their first names. It's pretty cool. I like that."

It wasn't what Curry had in mind when he was a high school player in nearby Charlotte, where his father was a mainstay of the old Charlotte Hornets and now works for the Bobcats, recently deciding against a job as an assistant coach in part so he and his wife, Sonya, could watch Stephen's games together.

"I always grew up wanting to go to Virginia Tech and follow in my father's footsteps," said Stephen, whose mother also went to Virginia Tech, starring for the volleyball team.

When Stephen's senior year came, Virginia Tech Coach Seth Greenberg -- who didn't have a scholarship open for the next season -- offered Curry, then maybe 6 feet and 160 pounds, a chance to walk on and sit out his freshman season and be awarded a scholarship the next year.

"I loved his game, but we had two very, very good guards who were seniors -- Zabian Dowdell and Jamon Gordon who beat Carolina and Duke -- and they were going to play," Greenberg said. "He wanted to play right away. Probably being honest was a mistake."

Stephen -- pronounced "Steff-in" -- was crushed. His family could have afforded to pay for his freshman year, but Stephen wanted to feel more wanted.

"I realized my dream of being at Virginia Tech was kind of gone," he said, and two days after Virginia Tech's offer, he committed to Davidson, whose coach, Bob McKillop, he had known since he played youth baseball with one of McKillop's sons.

Greenberg became just another ACC coach with regrets.

"He's a terrific kid, a beautiful kid, and they're a Norman Rockwell family," Greenberg said. "It puts everyone in a hard situation. Dell's beloved here, and he should be. In a perfect world, Stephen would be at Virginia Tech. But things have worked out very well for him."

It was Stephen's size that gave coaches pause.

"My junior year, I was 5-8. I was a shrimp," Curry said.

His freshman year in college, he was 6-1, then grew to 6-3 over the summer. When doctors recently X-rayed his injured left wrist, they told him his bone structure suggested he might grow another inch or two, a late-bloomer like his father.